I've had this flu bug thingy and though the goose may be getting
fat I think I've lost a few ounces. At one stage I just lay on the bed sweating
buckets and thinking more about how to get to the shop than I did about getting
home from Ibiza.

Actually the worst time came when I managed
to make it in the car to go for some liquorice papers and the awful Daily Mail
and then couldn't get out of the car. One of my neighbours, who is a churchwarden,
came out of her house on this Victorian terrace where I live and I just sort of
waved feebly. Quite why she thought I was sitting there doing nothing must have
bemused her, but I couldn't summon up the energy to open the car door.

It's
awful, but also awfully pleasant feeling like this, because nothing really matters.
I knew I had my dear readers all over the world waiting to hear from me, but you
could all sod off as I just perspired as though I had run from San Antonio to
Ibiza town and up and down the Galt Villa, or whatever it's called.

What
might have helped was a drink or three and then again I suppose that wouldn't
have helped, because it wouldn't have stopped there. Every ten minutes, once I
was back inside the house, I had to go and lie down and I remembered someone telling
me that when you are on a plane the air is recycled, so you catch whatever someone
at the back has already got. All I can say is that I hope they caught whatever
I already had; though I don't think I contributed very much.

Christmas
in Ibiza is suddenly sounding very appealing to me as I look at the pile of unwashed
pots here. Mind you, I did get home with the liquorice papers.

They've
blighted many parts of my life because people see me rolling cigarettes and just
assume I'm on drugs which is not as acceptable here in Haughton Green as it is
in the Balearics, though I see Tony Blair has decided that to sort of decriminalise
cannabis will stop people (i.e., voters) from complaining about what's going on
in Afghanistan.

They all roll cigarettes there, though
in a peculiar shape, like fireworks I remember as a child, starting out pointed
and getting fat towards the end and the word "vesuvias" comes to mind
for some reason. It's time to look in that big dictionary again. OK, I see it's
to do with a volcano on the bay of Naples in Italy which went off in 1643, though
quite why Vesuvian fireworks should have been a big thing in my childhood is a
bit like wondering why I have a penchant for Bury black puddings which are rather
like buttifarra sausages in Ibiza.

I'm hoping that today
I'll be feeling a bit better and I can start organising things for Christmas.
Cards are already arriving and now I have to start deciding on which relatives
I'll have to visit, never mind which continent.